


Saltshore

by Mudlark



Category: Furry (Fandom)
Genre: Fantasy, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Safe For Work, lion, otter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:33:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29328573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mudlark/pseuds/Mudlark
Summary: As one of the only students at the institute to study marine biology, Scottsdale is excited to be called away to examine a mythical beast that's washed up on the shore. While the young mage is excited to take this opportunity to further his knowledge of the ocean and its secrets, something more sinister lurks beneath the waves.Based on @riniweenies character Scooter, which can be found on their NSFW Twitter. But for now, I'll just tag their SFW, https://twitter.com/Rinibeaniebutt?s=09Thank you so much for letting me use your lion!





	Saltshore

Even with his eyes half-lidded with sleep, Scottsdale smiled at the thought of traveling 80 miles to see a dead silk whale. While it did pain him to leave Renardo’s embrace at such an ungodly hour of the morning, he would be lying to himself if the thrill of scientific discovery wasn’t buzzing around inside his brain. It _almost_ helped keep his mind off of the rickety carriage the school had provided, which did little to protect him from the chilled fall air. Rubbing his paws together, the lion exhaled, warming his fingers. He wanted to bite his own tail for forgetting to spend his silver on scrolls of candlelight. Having only one to use over the course of two days in some podunk seaside village was a depressing thought. Pushing his glasses snuggly against the bridge of his muzzle, he scrunched his face as another sliver of wind cut through the shoddy workmanship of the carriage.

Still, he was _going_ somewhere. As one of the only students of marine biology at Sholdmund’s Institute of Arcane Studies, he could barely remember the last time he’d received a request from anyone outside of the school, save for the stinking fishery that squatted by the river just beyond the grounds. The lion’s lips curled at the memory of walking into the building full of brine and scales, reeking almost as bad as the greasy lynx who owned the place. Renardo’d refused to sleep in the same bed as him for four days after that. 

As usual with assignments, the institute had given Scottsdale a copy of the letter they’d received from Saltshore, but he had trouble trying to translate the rough slang of shantytown fishermen.

_Big silky layin down sleepin dead on the shore. Done fancied herself up dressed in kelp and guts and gashes. Witch says bad omens been washin up in the foam for weeks now, and our riggers and catchers shakin like newbred gulls on a cold mornin. Saltshore never had no trouble with crawlers from the deep, and mammals gon start te get damned hungry here without scale-money. Even our bravest won’t tread the waters til we find out what’s in em. Don know when dis gon reach yas, but it be well liked ta send someone out quick._

_Signed to de institute from Captain Slike_

There were plenty of logical reasons something as large as a silk whale could have washed up on the beach, but something ominous prowled between the lines that Scottsdale couldn’t wrap his mind around. ‘ _Done fancied herself up dressed in kelp and guts and gashes’._ Silk whales were deep dwellers by nature, lumbering their enormous size through the abyssal zone at 14,000 feet beneath the waves. Contrary to their name, silk whales weren’t at all related to cetaceans. Instead, they evolved from the common, yet ancient Agrippan shrimp, an anxious little crustacean that rarely grew bigger than a thumb. While diverting from the dark red color scheme of their ancestors in favor of a translucent shell, silk whales kept the most noticeable trait—a nearly impenetrable set of chitin armor that encased their behemoth form.

Even in the deep, there were countless predators that lurked the abyss, but nothing out there could bite into a silk whale without _serious_ effort. And effort was not a common tactic when it came to scavenging the ocean floor. Calories were a most precious resource among benthics, not to be squandered on something that was akin to a scuttling tank. Dead specimens washing up on the beach was a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Their bodies could get carried by currents up the continental shelves, reaching shallower waters before coming to rest under the blazing sun. 

But a damaged silk whale? Now that was a truly rare sight to behold. The lion had prepared an entire roll of illustration cantrips to document bite marks and gouges for further study back at the institute. Matching them to a specific species could open up new doors to figuring out how such a mysterious ecosystem worked—all another piece to the puzzle.

It charged him with the same electrified curiosity that he’d felt when his parents first brought him to the beach when he was just a kitten. He’d never seen something as massive and awe-inspiring as the sea before. The crashing waves against the shore were dangerously enchanting, brimming with power and ferocity as they punched against the bastion of sharp tide pool rocks. Before he’d been properly trained to detect and identify arcane energies, Scottsdale could tell that the ocean held a bottomless supply. He found it hard to believe that life could exist in such chaos, but the books at the public library opened his eyes to a world of fantastic and alien beasts—ghoulish creatures that haunted the inky depths in search of prey. 

That, in its essence, was what fueled the lion’s endless fascination with all things aquatic. Oceanography, elemental hydrology, marine ecology and biology—every area of study that had to do with the water was tortured with a lack of information. The potential for new discoveries was astounding compared to that of other fields. 

In the frigid box of the carriage, Scottsdale smiled to himself. Maybe—just _maybe_ —he might be lucky enough to record something new on the beaches of Saltshore.

* * *

The ox brothers pulling the cart came to an abrupt halt, sending stacks of diagrams, anatomical charts, old books, and a sleeping lion tumbling onto the floor. Scottsdale spluttered curses as he sifted through his studies for his glasses, squinting as he checked them for cracks. A sigh of relief left him when he found none.

He’d been having the loveliest dream about Renardo, the two of them sitting on a blanket sharing bites of peppered cheese and mushrooms in a meadow. The bear had his usual, sly grin about him as his paw squeezed Scottsdale’s. The joyous heat of spring had been upon them, greeting them with the fragrance of blossoms and fresh soil. It was _heaven_. Scottsdale almost kept the memory of that false warmth with him until he opened the door and stepped into the ripping coastal gusts that were filled with sand and bitter cold. Tugging his cloak tight around his small frame, the lion thanked the brothers, who both just stared at him with their wide, vacant eyes before grunting and turning their huge frames back the way they’d come.

And just like that, he was alone.

Taking a deep breath, the young student turned his muzzle to the sky, watching clouds sagging with rain as they trudged towards the horizon. Trees, void of leaves, reached their sharp branches upwards, almost as if they wanted to puncture the cold front. Faded dunes of white sand rolled endlessly outwards, speckled with wispy shrubbery that twirled in the wind. The day was muted by the overcast, shadowless and neutral in the lion’s eyes.

Hoisting his pack over his shoulder, Scottsdale turned to survey the entrance to Saltshore. The small town had been built entirely on a series of enormous docks leftover from the brief invasion of the Ursine empire before their outburst was quashed by the other nations nearly 80 years ago. Not to waste an opportunity, sea otters claimed the place as their own, erecting flimsy houses constructed from hardened seaweed, coral, and flotsam. The whole place reeked of bird shit and fish bones and drying barnacles. 

Otters mulled about along the creaking planks, some with fishing lines trawling the shallow waters for cray while others tended to the simple task of flaying scales, waving their knives at greedy gulls. The scavengers wailed for innards and swim bladders, which the butchers tossed sparingly to keep them away from the baskets filled with fresh catches. Dark blood oozed from the chopping tables, seeping into the wood before dripping down to the foam below. Makeshift pillars of timber groaned in the gentle surf, doing little to reassure the lion of the town’s structural integrity. 

Saltshore’s entrance didn’t do wonders for his faith in the place, either. An archway constructed from thick logs and soggy, fraying ropes stood high above his head, adorned with hundreds of old fishing lines, each holding hooks of varying sizes and cruelty at their ends. They chimed in the strong wind, and the lion quickly scooted under the curtain of wire and rusting metal as he made his way towards the nearest vendor. The mammal was a skinny, scraggly otter with a vicious underbite who busied himself hacking away at fish heads.

The old butcher stared at him with the same glazed eyes as the cod he’d slapped onto the table. Jagged troughs of scarred flesh crossed over his right cheek, running dangerously close to his neck. Clumps of greying fur jutted from his head like dirty cotton swabs. A firm grimace locked itself on his muzzle. He did not speak, instead choosing to decapitate his fish with a heavy _thwack!_ of his cleaver before slicing open its belly. The otter grunted, maybe because he wanted Scottsdale to speak, or maybe because he’d found something amusing in the cod’s stomach.

Raising a paw, the young biologist offered a bright smile. “Sorry to interrupt your...work, but I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of Captain Slike. I’m from Sholdmund’s Institute of Arcane Studies. She was supposed to meet me around the entrance. I have the letter of her summons,” he said.

The otter chopped another head before extending his cleaver like a bloody compass towards a corner of the town, nodding. When he finally spoke, Scottsdale thought he sounded like pebbles rolling over one another in a stream. “Find Scarless Slike slinkin’ dredged up in ‘er bottle-barn, ye? Close right to de book house ‘n de shell kennels. Can’t miss de thing ‘less ya’s blind ‘n dumb.” He grunted, laughing briefly at his own joke, which devolved into a round of spit-clogged coughing. Taking a deep breath, he hocked something viscous and yellow behind the counter before returning to his work.

Scottsdale thanked him quietly, walking off in search of the captain. From what he was able to glean from the butcher, he’d find Slike drunk off her tail in some seedy tavern tucked away near the dock ends.

Probably.

Sighing, the lion began his journey through the shantytown, winding over rocking, makeshift bridges cemented with shaped algae and other seagrasses. These unguarded shortcuts between docks sagged under the lion’s weight, but the children of Saltshore had no issue with barreling past him, chirping and screaming as they chased waddling pelicans throughout the town. 

One of the kits, a bony girl no older than six, stopped to stare at him with narrowed eyes. She examined his royal blue robes for only a moment before yelling something unintelligible, then burping loudly and thumping her chest. Her claws ticked against the planks as she ran back to her pack.

Other citizens paid even less attention to the lion as he milled about. There was a rugged attitude among the otters as they went about their jobs with an almost soldier-like duty. When life was lived on the shores, eyes were kept alert and elsewhere, attentive to currents and the shadows that glided beneath them. Here, the mammals wore their mistakes as wounds, most received when they were young and foolish—easily tricked by the false serenity of the sea. Mercy was an unfamiliar concept to nature, and the brine was a harsh, unforgiving teacher.

A familiar scent picked its way through the miasma of dried barnacles and discarded innards, strong and sweet to the lion’s sensitive nostrils, rolling deliciously into his muzzle—ale.

Following his nose, Scottsdale was led to the very corner of Saltshore’s labyrinthian docks, cutting through alleyways barely wide enough for the lithe cat and his pack. Eventually, he found himself faced with a peculiar lump of a building that stunk of a crafter’s magic. 

It was as if a giant fist of kelp had risen to smash down upon the town, only to freeze just before impact. Layers upon layers of the aquatic plant had been folded seamlessly over each other, ranging in color from snot-green to the dried blood red of dulse. The slow, muted chugging of an engine leaked from inside. Crude ventilation spouts sprung from the infrastructure like wild hairs, puffing smoke that disappeared into the grey sky. Empty bottles decorated the doorless entry, stuffed with notes. Plucking one from its container, he unraveled it only to sigh at the message of _“I down n willied Borshak’s sister in de loo,''_ accompanied by a crude drawing. Crumpling the paper and cramming it back in the bottle, Scottsdale pushed his way into the tavern.

To his surprise, the interior was fairly well lit, albeit in a sickening yellow from aged lamps strung across the ceiling. Tables and chairs fashioned from giant clam and nautilus shells littered the place in no discernable order. Clumps of algae grew in place of spiderwebs, spreading over the walls in untamed patterns. A crab scuttled by to hide under a row of misshapen stools. 

Sitting upon one, utterly alone in the establishment, was one of the largest otters Scottsdale had ever seen.

Her blockish head lay sideways on the bar, drooling onto the massive piece of driftwood with her paw outstretched towards an empty bottle. In a twisted sense, the lion thought she looked like a desert wanderer who had died mere inches away from water. Light, alabaster fur covered her muzzle, sleek with sweat and grime. Her snores were surprisingly light for her size, and the well-fitting uniform she wore didn’t seem to bother her as she slept. A rusting scimitar dangled from her hip without a scabbard. The woman’s thick tail spilled onto the ground, and the crab dashed over it without a reaction from the sleeping giant. 

Cautiously, the lion tapped her shoulder. The last thing he wanted was to end up on the floor of some seedy bar trying to hold his entrails in. “Captain Slike?” he asked.

Not a sound came from her.

Instead, the captain’s body started a slow, yet unstoppable slump towards another stool. Scottsdale made a desperate grab for her coat, but the damage had already been done. Slike crashed through the shoddy workmanship of the other seat, smashing it to bits as she landed with a jarring _whud!_ The lion stood petrified, eyes almost as wide as his glasses and tail tucked between his legs. A string of apologies was about to burst from his muzzle, but Slike groaned loudly, rubbing her head and blinking her eyes rapidly. Her voice was hard and coarse, like a rundown machine. Interestingly, she spoke with only a hint of the rough sailors’ dialect.

“Aw, _bleedin’ bonefish_ , my _head_.” She scowled, scrunching her face as she jammed her palm into the side of her skull. “Lad, what time is it?”

Scottsdale sputtered out something incoherent before retrieving his pocket watch from his robes. The small mechanism ticked in the silent alehouse as the otter fought off her obvious hangover. “12:02,” the lion stated.

“Noon or mornin’?” she asked.

“Noon,” Scottsdale affirmed.

Slike pouted like a child, gripping the bar as she hauled herself up to her towering height, a head and a half taller than the lion. Her small, beady eyes squinted at the light spilling through the doorway. “Well shite. My apologies, ahhhh, what’s yer name now, laddie?”

Unraveling his summons, the lion handed the parchment to her. She scanned it briefly, slipping it into her breast pocket. The captain extended a burly, calloused paw, capturing Scottsdale’s in a smothering handshake. 

“Nice tah meet ya, Mr. Roark.” A grim smile curled over her muzzle. “Now how ‘bout we take ya tah see our fair silky, eh?”

Scottsdale let out a sigh of relief. _Finally_ , he thought. He would be lying to himself if the constant walking hadn’t already gotten on his nerves, but he knew it was best not to express these feelings to someone who could probably kill him with a single paw. Slike beckoned him to follow her out of the tavern, and he did so obediently.

* * *

The reverence for Captain Slike was silent, but noticeable. Otters acknowledged her with brief nods as she strolled by, which Slike never returned. Kits didn’t stop their games, but gave her a wide berth as if there were an invisible territory of respect. It was hard to believe that not ten minutes ago she had been stumbling her way over the aftermath of a drunken stupor. No matter where she stepped, wood creaked under her boots. Frankly, Scottsdale was surprised she didn’t plummet through the flimsy boards to the rocky shallows below. Slike walked with confidence, though keeping a paw loosely hooked over the pommel of her sword, fingering the worn leather grip as she surveyed the town.

As they crossed over another bridge, the lion turned to see a team of eight otters hauling a red-spined basker over the docks, struggling with the fish’s awkward size. Its bright mouths gaped open like violently blooming flowers as it died, arching desperately against the mammals. Rain speckled the docks, slicking the wood in a field of small puddles. Scottsdale was about to turn his attention away when a pectoral fin flared out, slamming one of the captors in the stomach, nearly sending her tumbling over the edge. Shouting and cursing filled the air as they scrambled to adjust their grips while checking on their comrade, who wheezed with her arms curled around her midsection.

Slike leapt into action.

Scottsdale watched in awe as she sprung forward, barreling down the walkway. Her heavy footfalls became impossibly light as she bounded towards the otters’ fresh catch. The basker sensed the chaos from its hunters, flailing wildly in a last-ditch effort to find its way back to the water. Two more otters were flung to the side, one letting out a strangled yelp as he rolled over and into the surf.

But suddenly, Slike was there, the distance covered impossibly fast as her paw shot out, gripping the mammal by the foot. Even through the thick uniform she wore, Scottsdale could see the brutal architecture of muscle as she effortlessly hoisted the otter in the air, dropping him back onto the docks. In another smooth motion, her scimitar was drawn high in the air as she whirled around, only to descend with a guillotine chop that bit deep into the basker’s frilled head. The fish died instantly, its long, thick body going limp as blood drained from its skull. 

Slike barely had her sword out of the creature when she was in another otter’s face, yelling something that Scottsdale couldn’t understand. It was too quick, and in her anger the captain had slipped back to the choppy Saltshore dialect. From what he could make out, she was furious that they’d brought the catch down the docks alive, but the biting retort the other otter gave was too muddled with anger and fear for Scottsdale to translate. With the look on Slike’s face, he thought that the other mustelid might be next in line to taste the rusted steel of her scimitar, but instead the captain loomed over him, pointing in a few different directions before making her way back. With a simple grunt, she had the lion trailing behind her again. Scottsdale allowed her a few minutes of silence when his curiosity got the best of him.

“How much does a basker sell for, usually?” he asked. 

Slike’s distant expression soured. “Piss-all. That’s just tah keep the town fed fer now, ‘specially our grey-muzzles. Ever since de silky washed up, we’ve had almost nothin’ but empty lines fer guppies and de like. We’re usually haulin’ in kite eels or Sappithan marlins, but I’m havin’ trouble convincing my hunters tah swim out past de damn docks, let alone de kelp beds.”

Judging from the town’s reaction to its leader, Scottsdale struggled to imagine anyone saying ‘no’ to the otter. “What are you bringing up with trawling nets from your boats?” he asked. “Are you catching anything unusual from them?”

Slike’s eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch, as if she’d heard a tasteless joke. “Son, otters don’t _use_ boats. We go into de waves with nothin’ but knives and fangs,” she said.

Scottsdale almost stopped walking in order to process what he’d heard. “Wait, then how are you bringing in kite eels? They live almost 300 feet below surface level.”

This time, the captain laughed. It was an unpleasant, choking bark that echoed into the air. “Ya don’t need a thing besides some guts and a good set of lungs tah nab one of those bastards. And even then, we usually just string ‘em up as chum tah lure in skulkers.”

The lion’s jaw hung dumbly open. “A skulker can swallow two mammals whole. Easily,” he stated.

Captain Slike hummed something that sounded like the beginning of a sea shanty, as if she’d been reminded of a pleasant memory. “Tell me, cub, did ya happen tah see any graveyards on yer way here?” she asked. Scottsdale shook his head. “Born in de sea, die in de sea—simple as that. Now let’s get ya down on the sand, ye?”

* * *

The beach was long and soft and painted with strokes of green kelp washed ashore during the rough tides of the approaching winter. Waterfowl paddled aimlessly in the current, snapping their beaks at drifting pieces of scum. Behemoth clouds dragged their rain-filled bellies out to sea where the wind ripped the wake into a salty mist. Crab shells lay half-buried in the loam, picked clean by crows. Scottsdale took a deep breath, filling his muzzle with the stench of decay and foam. It relaxed his quivering heart as they slogged through wet sand. It was nearly a mile when the captain pointed out the dead beast to him.

As they walked closer, a deep frown rooted itself on the lion’s face. Adjusting his glasses, he peered at the boulder-sized crustacean before him, trying to make out its injuries, but the creature was coated in seaweed and rock. To him, it resembled something closer to a giant pile of mashed potatoes rather than an animal. It wasn’t until they were mere yards away that the full, gory details were revealed to the young biologist. A chilled panic caused his heart to skip. Slike was talking, but the words were drowned out by the impossibility of what he was seeing.

The silk whale had been absolutely obliterated. Its center, one of the strongest sections of its curved shell, was flattened, the translucent chitin cracked like glass. The complex system of organs that allowed it to feed on mere refuse and organic dust had been eviscerated, resembling some kind of horrific stew. Its legion of legs, usually ordered in neat, military rows, were torn and broken, pointing drunkenly in every direction. Sand covered most of the minuscule head, but the damage was clear. It was as if a cruel giant had taken to it with a mallet. The result made Scottsdale’s stomach flip. Lifting a paw, the lion began tugging away strings of kelp. Slike noticed the lion’s intense concentration and leaned herself against the corpse.

“So tell me, cat. What’s lurkin’ in my waters?” she asked, folding her massive arms tight against her chest.

Scottsdale stared at the mess in front of him. Where was he even supposed to begin? “I don’t know, captain. Right now, I’m just looking for bite marks, but this isn’t making much sense. There’s no sign of, well, anything. We’d be seeing discarded teeth or puncture wounds in a classic crescent shape of a shark. The intestinal tracks I’ve seen don’t appear torn or ripped either. Whatever did this had no intention of eating it. Surplus killing isn’t by any means a rare occurrence in nature, but never on a creature this size.”

Slike coughed into her paw. “Son, I don’t much have time fer fancied up words. Can yah tell me what’s out there or not? I didn’t pay the institute for a ‘maybe.’ ”

Reaching back into the drapes of seaweed, the biologist returned to his task of uncovering the great beast. “Help me get rid of this, and I might just be able to find out exactly what happened.”

The two began their grueling work, tearing away the stinking sea-plant until their paws were numb from the bitter wind. As sections were cleared, Scottsdale took the time to document his findings, sometimes in a small sketchbook, other times using his scrolls of illustration. He held the thin paper up to the muddled light, muttering the weak incantation required for its activation. The lion made sure to hold his paws as steadily as possible as ink slowly glided over the empty parchment, outlining in perfect detail the slaughter before him. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, cursing the dull overcast for hiding the sun. Direct heat made this process a snap, but he had to substitute that for raw magic, a draining process at best.

It was when Slike peeled away a particularly thick mass near the flank that he asked her to stop, and the giant otter froze, eyes tracing for what she had missed. Scottsdale pointed to the groove that trailed down out of the shade of the foliage. It had to be almost a foot deep at least and half a foot wide. Unlike the rest of the wounds, it was surgically clean, angled sharply inwards like a common fowl trap to make sure the bird couldn’t escape once inside. As the two yanked more seaweed away, he saw that it continued up the side of the shell in a delicate arc until it ceased suddenly near the top. Slike whistled, a hint of admiration in her voice.

“Derretti’s _beard_. Now that’s a damned cut if I ever seen one.” Slike glanced at her sword as if she was disappointed it couldn’t pull off such a feat of violence.

Scottsdale was quiet, his brain meddling with theories until he came across one so outlandish and terrifying that it made the fur along his shoulders spike in alarm. Tracing his finger along the surface of the cut, he followed it down until it disappeared into the wet sand stained with the whale’s blood. He stepped back, tracing the trajectory of the arc, leading past the crushed midsection to the shoulder. Feverishly, the cat stripped away layers of rubbish until he found what he was looking for.

A second scar. It ran in the same, perfect arc as the other one, riding up the side until it suddenly disappeared over the top. 

Unfazed by the increasing rain, the cat tore off his pack, digging frantically through his collection of books. _Staitham’s Compendium of Crustacean Anatomy_ and _Tracking Eastern Deep Sea Currents_ were tossed into the sand, as well as his copy of _Shoal to Shore_. Finally, he found what he was hunting for—an old, plain-looking manual with a detailed cephalopod engraved on the front. Flipping through the pages, he spread his paw over a diagram depicting the ensnaring tentacles of a common reef squid. The anatomical structure was familiar to him, especially the dissected suckers with their serrated edges—daggers that sank in to latch onto prey. If his theory was correct…

Scottsdale stuck his paw into the crevice, wedging his fingers past the gory debris until they were pressed firmly against the deepest point of the broken shell. Sliding along, he found it mysteriously smooth, like shaped glass. Then came the first bump. It, too, was smooth, the angle shifting obtusely outwards before returning to a flat plane for another two feet. Then, another bump. It was like an odd staircase had been carved into the animal. He was about to report his findings to the otter when the surf was broken by an enormous, slithering shape.

The tentacle was as wide as a city street, shaded in a morbid, rotting green. Gallons of seawater slipped from the giant appendage as it loomed forth, muscles undulating beneath the viscous skin. Sand and rocks were pushed effortlessly aside as it continued to reach out, the blunt tip rising like the head of a snake. Suckers the size of small craters hung from the underside like grotesque, pulsing chandeliers. They flexed and shivered eagerly as the open air blew past them. The two mammals scrambled backwards, up past the head of the silk whale, mouths agape as it seemed to test its new surroundings. 

Slike’s paw went for her blade, but Scottsdale hissed for her to stop. There were things he wished he could tell her, but the best he could do was put a finger to his lips and pray that the proud captain would resist a suicidal charge. There must have been enough desperation in his eyes, though, because the otter only gripped the pommel of her scimitar, the rest of her body still as stone. 

Scottsdale watched as the limb fumbled around clumsily, eerily similar to how he searched for his glasses on the nightstand in the morning. He could feel the earth shift beneath him as it slid against the tail of the silk whale, caressing the dead creature with a gentle curiosity. The lion’s chest felt like it was going to collapse in on itself as he watched the tentacle lurch forward, just a few yards away from them. Breath refused to leave his lungs when it hooked around the crushed middle. With extreme violence, the crustacean was yanked into the surf, disappearing beneath the waves with an explosive splash. The pair stood in silence, staring at the gash of sand before them. The otter turned to Scottsdale, face streaked with worry.

“Mage,” she said tersely, “just what the _hell_ was that?”

“I-I don’t know,” Scottsdale admitted, “but you need to get as many mammals away from Saltshore. _Now_. Send them up the road, away from the beach. I’ll be right behind you.”

She nodded once, then dashed off towards her hometown in a dead sprint. Scottsdale lagged behind, weighed down by a mixture of equipment and fear. His legs had become sluggish with a new dread. What they had seen was merely a feeding arm, if his book’s anatomy could be translated to whatever was out there. He tried and failed to stop his imagination from running wild with the horror that now tormented Saltshore. Any excitement he had about his studies had been firmly evicted by panic.

The movement that caught his eye was so slow and distanced that he had trouble comprehending its scale. It was as if a dark mountain were tearing its way out of the sea, rising ominously towards the low clouds. It had to be at least a mile out, but the shape of the leviathan’s mantle was clear to him as it pierced the heavens. Limbs the size of buildings rose with it, and soon a new, appalling skyline was formed. A wail leapt from his throat, fueled by confusion and despair. The lion was frozen, a forced witness to the events unfolding.

Two gargantuan eyes appeared, larger than a coliseum each and black as the space between the stars. They captured everything in their emotionless gaze. Despite this, its actions were curious, like a cub peeking into a room their parents had forbidden them to go. The arms swayed, their immense size moving with an unfitting grace, swatting at the clouds. They curled and uncurled experimentally. Then, as soon as it had arisen, the monster tilted sideways, falling towards the sea with a world-shaking crash. Geysers of white water exploded into the air. The sound of millions of gallons being displaced was like a great sheet being torn overhead. In the distance, the horizon wobbled as waves raced towards the shore. The tide retreated, gurgling at the rush of pure force that was sucking it out to sea. 

Swells collided and combined, climbing to devastating heights in an instant. Some petered out as they scraped against the sharp incline of the seafloor, only to be bypassed by the bullying energy from the leviathan’s collapse. Scottsdale changed his trajectory, scampering straight up the beach towards the dunes as the roaring sea chased him. Prayers, curses, and apologies ripped themselves from his throat, drowned out by the tumbling ocean. Splintering wood and alarmed screams drew his attention to the small village as the dock ends shattered like a cheap toy, overtaken by the rising tide. 

Then, the sea was upon him. The lion didn’t even have time to hold his breath as he was engulfed by a frigid chill, knocking him flat onto his stomach. Rocks and shells and kelp shot past him, grating at his exposed fur. His muzzle burned as brine shot down his nostrils and into his lungs. The young mage tried to cough, but there was no air. Something tugged at the nape of his robes, but his vision faded as a clump of debris struck his head, sending him reeling into unconsciousness.

* * *

Scottsdale had difficulty figuring out why he was so cold when he awoke. Had Rendardo left the windows to their room open again? He swore that bear could never get enough of the chilled air, even during the winter months. And _gods_ , his head! It felt like someone had tried to knock his eyeballs from his skull with a cinderblock. Blinking rapidly, the lion found himself staring up at the gorgeous lavender of twilight, sprinkled with budding stars. Reaching a paw up to pinch the bridge of his muzzle, he recoiled in agony. Dull, thudding pain beat steadily up the entirety of his right arm. He gasped in the taste of salt and retched, head spinning as brackish drool fell from his muzzle. With pain came memories, dredged up from the haze of his damaged mind. But one stood above them all, a crowning terror which would haunt him in the coming months.

The eyes of the beast. Soulless, unblinking masses that swallowed the light with greed. 

A fit of coughs erupted from the lion, and something thumped against his back. He rolled to see Slike sitting next to him, face pale and eyes unfocused. One paw cradled her knee, the other holding what at first Scottsdale thought was her sword. Then he noticed the wine-red stain on her trousers. Sticking out of her calf was a jagged piece of driftwood, nearly a foot in length. Her voice was hoarse and quiet.

“Glad yer here, kit. Thought you wasn’t ever gonna wake up,” she said. Her gaze was locked on the horizon as waves lapped apologetically at the shore.

“Slike? Your leg—the _town_ . Where is everyone? What _happened_?” Scottsdale asked, his mind flooding with questions.

“Leg’s fine,” she grunted. “And Saltshore’s gone, kit. You ‘n me is all that’s left.” 

Even though it was just the two of them, he couldn’t help but feel like she was speaking to someone else. The pain in his arm flared when he put weight on it, curling up in the sand as he grimaced. A paw braced his shoulder, helping him sit up, and for the first time since coming to Scottsdale could see the extent of the destruction.

In the shade of dusk, the beach swirled and frothed with irregular swells, carrying splintered pieces of the town. Fishing nets spun in lazy, tangled circles. Furniture bobbed awkwardly among broken pillars, outlined with the litter of household items—picture frames and table cloths and woven baskets. There was a hollow sound of unseen things colliding in the murk. Scottsdale turned away when a corpse slid out from the wreckage. 

It was at that moment that he realized Slike had chosen to save him. She’d seen the rush of waves, knowing the town had been doomed. The captain had risked her life to drag him to shore, up to the dunes where they now sat. The lion wanted to thank her, but his gratitude died when he saw her wistful stare.

“My pack,” he said. “Was it with me?”

Instead of answering, she simply dumped the soggy thing in front of him. He let out a silent prayer, unlatching the hood to rifle through sheets of drenched paper until he found what he was looking for. Plucking a small leather tube from the bag, he carefully shook the parchment rolled inside into his paw, unfurling his only scroll of candlelight. To his relief, the paper was only damp around the edges, leaving the inked runes intact. The sorcery stored within still thrummed with warmth under his fingertips. Nodding towards the otter’s wound, he scooted to her side.

“We need to cauterize that,” he stated grimly. “I can help you get it ou—”

“No,” she said, wrapping her paw tightly around the stake. “Save it for yer magics, kit.”

With a vicious yank, Slike tore the offending piece from her leg, grunting once as she flung it down the dune towards the ruined town. Digging two fingers into the cloth, she ripped the material wide open to expose the dark wound. Using both paws, she shifted her damaged leg towards Scottsdale, simply nodding. Taking a deep breath, Scottsdale aligned the center of the scroll over her calf, holding it tight. 

“On three,” he said.

“Just do it, dammit,” Slike ordered.

Pins and needles jabbed at the lion’s paws as he dripped just enough energy into the paper to activate the charm. A tongue of flame swirled into existence, lighting the two in an amber glow as it made contact. 

Slike roared into the night, but not with pain. Scottsdale listened as her rage, despair, and grief echoed into the sea, reaching out to the ghosts of her people. Flesh and fur burned, the acrid smell making the lion’s stomach curdle, but he held until five seconds had passed. Pulling the cantrip away, he inspected the bare skin, now warped and blackened like a piece of obsidian. At least the bleeding had stopped. 

For the first time since he’d woken up, Slike looked him in the eyes. Blood and grime matted her face. Tiny cuts stitched their way across her muzzle. One of her cheeks had swollen to an alarming size. But despite her ragged appearance, the intense fury behind her gaze made him want to curl his tail between his legs. To his immense surprise, the captain forced herself to stand, offering a paw. He took it, bewildered at her tenacity. Slike pulled him up instantly, wobbling until Scottsdale hooked her arm over his good shoulder.

“And now?” she asked. 

Scottsdale realized that she was putting him in charge, straightening up the best he could. “We head for the institute. Tell them what we saw. Tell them what happened to Saltshore,” he said, then added, “and her people.”

“Will they help us kill de thing?” she asked.

“I...don’t know,” he admitted. “We don’t even know what _it_ is, or why it’s here. And it’s not my decision, anyways.”

“Then we walk?”

“Yes. The carriage was supposed to be here in two days to take me back, so we should be able to meet it halfway if we’re lucky. We could wait, but I want to get as far away from the shore as possible.”

“Aye,” Slike agreed. “Gettin’ away from these parts sounds wise.”

With that, the pair hobbled towards the road as night overtook the sky, neither bothering to look back at the remains of Saltshore as it was gradually claimed by the unforgiving sea.


End file.
